


Tinsel and Rosemary

by elena_stidham



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Boys In Love, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gingerbread house making, M/M, Recovery, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28473723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elena_stidham/pseuds/elena_stidham
Summary: It's Christmas in New York City -- and Ash finds out that Eiji had never made a gingerbread house before.//Secret Santa gift for @Yozora_85 on twitter!
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	Tinsel and Rosemary

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS FOR: Language, non-explicit sex talk, a single mention of rape in reference to canon
> 
> SONGS USED TO GET IN THE MOOD: ASMR, and this particular remix of Washing Machine Heart: https://youtu.be/-rZrRGfFN74
> 
> This was, in fact, not my last Banana Fish fic lol. I’m taking part in an AshEiji Secret Santa and this is my gift for @Yozora_85 on twitter! I really hope you like it! And thank you so much for being the reason I actually managed to write a fic in 2020. You’re a hero. And thank you Rimi for hosting this!! I wouldn’t have been able to write a thing if it weren’t for this, so thank you for having me!
> 
> My twitter and tumblr is elenastidham. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy.
> 
> -Elena

The first snow came rather early this year.

It came as a shock to the both of them, but Ash and Eiji decided not to let the cold cut through their veins until it was seasonally appropriate – and, within time, it was.

Eiji has seen gingerbread before. Of course he has. It’s a staple of damn near every American holiday movie, song, and whatever other media he can consume that was made in the states. He knows what it looks like, what people do with it, the whole package. It’s just, like many things, gingerbread isn’t really a thing in Japan – so he’s never tasted it before. 

Now, Eiji doesn’t want to ask to bake gingerbread with Ash unless he knows for sure how to make it or at least has someone experienced in the kitchen. Ash can’t cook something edible enough to save his life, and they can’t necessarily follow a recipe together. Last time that happened, it was a disaster that led to a grease fire in the oven and flour finely coated all along every centimetre of their bathroom.

Don’t ask.

But he still wants to make gingerbread cookies, or at the very least learn what they taste like. Eiji can only imagine, based on the smells in every Christmas-decorated shop in New York, based on how people take a bit in movies, based on the sound; and he wants it.

Yet, he never brings it up.

Ash is so used to being caught in scenarios where he is never asked what he wants. He’s so used to situations where his needs are never even considered, and the last thing Eiji wants to do is to end up treating Ash the same way. He would rather die than find himself neglecting what Ash would want, to the point to where he’d been neglecting his own wants. He doesn’t make any requests, he doesn’t plant ideas into Ash’s head that could taint his vision and cause a reaction solely out of guilt, he doesn’t pry.

So, as much as he would like to, Eiji does not ask about gingerbread cookies.

In the end, he finds out, he doesn’t have to, as one day Ash just comes home with two gingerbread house kits, ready to be built and decorated with cheap frosting.

Eiji raises an eyebrow. “What’s all this?”

“It’s Christmas,” Ash says, setting the kits onto the table and rummaging for some paper plates. “This was something my brother and I used to do together all the time, so I want to make these with you.”

He sets the paper plates on the table while Eiji just calmly watches. A mind reader, it seems, that looks to be the only explanation for how their brains manage to sync up on the subject.

“These are probably going to taste different from what you’re used to in Japan,” Ash chuckles lightly. “I hope that’s okay.”

“Well,” Eiji smiles. “We don’t really have gingerbread in Japan.”

Ash looks at him, confused. “Really?”

Eiji nods.

“Huh,” Ash hums, then proceeds to open the boxes. “Okay, so what you do, is you use the icing to glue the house together, and then begin to decorate with all this frosting and sprinkles and gumdrops and the other shit I bought. Then when you’re done, what Griffin and I used to do is take pictures of the finished product, and then pretend that we’re giants and we just go apeshit and break the house and eat it up like we’re monsters.” He laughs fondly. “It was my favourite part.”

He pauses, then he looks back up at Eiji. “That is, if you want to. I won’t make you.”

Eiji shakes his head. “No, I’d love to. I’ve always wanted to know what gingerbread tastes like.”

Ash lets out a one-breath chuckle. “This won’t be as good as homemade gingerbread. Especially since you’re about to coat this in all kinds of frosting and candy.”

Eiji just shrugs. “Still a taste and a new fun time. Something I couldn’t easily get in Japan.”

They sit across each other as they gather their parts together and the ingredients they’re wanting to add as decoration. Eiji manages to glue his house together using the frosting with relative ease, but it looks like Ash can’t remember how he did it.

Eiji just giggles, getting up for a moment and walking over to Ash’s side. “Here,” he says, taking his hands with the piping bag and beginning to help him coat the sides of the gingerbread.

_Oh._

Ash is nervous. He’s painfully nervous. He’s trying not to be, but he seems to forget that Eiji can see right through him when he’s putting on a façade. He knows that Ash typically gets like this around close contact, and they were definitely close right now. Connected with their bodies, Ash holding his breath, Eiji letting out a soft sigh in his ear.

When the house is put together, Eiji calmly returns to his seat, and Ash just has to take a moment to pull himself together. He looks back at the gingerbread house, and very cautiously begins to add gumdrops along the rooftop.

“Hey, hon,” Ash finally speaks, quietly.

Eiji looks up.

“I’ve been,” he pauses, looking for the right way to phrase this. “Thinking. We’ve been together for a little while. Maybe we could try something new.”

“As in?”

Ash swallows hard, realising he’s going to have the bullet on this. “Let’s try sex.”

“No,” Eiji tells him immediately, looking back to his gingerbread house and shakingly adds some sprinkles, now. Fuck. He let something slip. He had to have. He must have kissed too long. He must have had a specific gaze. He had to have done something to make Ash think of something like this, and as much Eiji would want this, he’s ashamed of himself for planting the idea in Ash’s head _especially_ knowing everything that happened to him.

“Why not?” Ash asks, almost offended.

“Because it’s not what you want,” Eiji says. “You’re only asking because it’s something I’ve been wanting.”

“No, Eiji, I—” he pauses, processing the words. “You’ve been wanting to?”

“Didn’t I make it obvious somehow?” Eiji looks back up at him again. “That’s why you’re telling me this.”

Ash blinks, then shakes his head. “No, Eiji,” he really needs to let this sink in. “I brought it up because it was something I wanted. Why didn’t you tell me when you wanted to?”

Eiji just shrugs.

“No,” Ash interrupts. “Eiji, I never know what you want. I want you to tell me these things.”

“I like what you like so I never had a reason to bring it up,” Eiji is nonchalant in what he says. It’s not exactly a lie, but it’s not exactly the full truth either. He has to wonder about what Ash is telling him, just now. This is something he wants? Since when? “I thought you hated sex.”

The way Ash is staring at him just now, it’s confusion but with a hint of shock. “I hated being raped, Eiji. This is something I know for a fact you would never do to me.” He pushes his gingerbread house to the side so he could give his partner full and undivided attention. “I wanted to work on this with you, because I trust _you_ to be the person I want to sleep with. I want to be vulnerable with you, and only with you, because I know wholeheartedly you would never, _ever_ do anything to hurt me.”

Eiji swallows hard. “Are you sure this is what you want, Aslan?”

He brought out the name. Of course he brought out the name. There are very specific situations where Eiji decides to call Ash by his real name, and it almost always involves something requiring delicacy. It’s intimate, knowing he can call Ash like this, and be the only one that can, and so he only uses it when he has to, when he wants to make sure the seriousness of the situation matches the name coming out of his mouth.

And it does.

“Of course this is what I want,” Ash replies, then looks Eiji in the eyes with extreme intensity. “Is this what _you_ want?”

He can’t hide this from Ash anymore. He can’t hide any of his wants from Ash anymore – because he knows Ash. He knows that now, after this little conflict, Ash will be paying very particular attention to what Eiji reacts to, to what his eyes gaze on for just a moment too long, to the way he even _breathes._ He can’t hide things like that anymore, and he shouldn’t.

So very simply, he won’t.

Eiji takes a deep breath, and he finally nods. He keeps his eye contact calm, comfortable, and still – undeniably, his tone matches his words. “Yes, Ash. I want this, too.”

There’s giggles, there’s blushing, there’s smiling down at their gingerbread houses like they’re schoolboys gossiping about the people they find pretty on the playground. But the world is their playground, their home is their sanctuary.

It doesn’t take much longer from this point for the two of them to finish their gingerbread houses, taking their pictures and then doing the fun part – smashing the houses like they’re giants and devouring the building before it even stood a chance against reality. It ends their session with laughter, with brightness in their eyes and a reminder that everything will be okay, no matter how the next part of their night goes.

And it begins with a soft touch of the cheek. They’ve kissed each other before, quite often actually, and it’s something they’re so used to and comfortable with. Yet, this one was different. This one starts with a soft opening to share a breath between them both and a light brush across their lips like they were a canvas.

This kiss, in this moment, was not like any other they’ve had before.

Eiji nor Ash don’t drag each other to the bedroom and onto the bed. They don’t even really start taking their clothes off until Ash’s back is against the door. Even then, Eiji’s fingers only shakingly fumble at his first few buttons on his shirt.

Ash is the one that opens the door, and he just rips the band-aid off and pulls his shirt over his head and tossing it onto the floor beside him.

They ask one last time.

“Is this what you really want?”

“ _Yes._ ”

Right before they lay down on the bed, Eiji blows out the candle on the nightstand to immerse themselves in complete darkness, a light trail of smoke following the ghost of flame. This smell will forever be seared into Ash’s mind as the day he finally tried, as the day he allowed himself to love, and to be loved in return. And this will be the day Eiji will forever remember the first taste of gingerbread, the purest and childlike joy of wintertime, and the day he finally allowed himself to ask for what he wants.

It smells like tinsel and rosemary.


End file.
